What Happened to Wednesday
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Set in late season 1, Brennan has a mishap in New Orleans, and she is left to ask herself, "What happened to Wednesday?" This story explains what happened to her during her lost day in the Big Easy. Voodoo and intrigue abound!
1. Chapter 1

_THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT WRITING FICTION FOR 'BONES,' AND I'M NOT EVEN SURE IF ANYONE CARES ABOUT BRENNAN'S LOST WEDNESDAY! PLEASE REVIEW TO LET ME KNOW! AND, OF COURSE, TO OFFER CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS._

_THE ENTIRE TEXT OF CHAPTER ONE IS TAKEN FROM THE EPISODE 'THE MAN IN THE MORGUE', SIMPLY TO SET THE SCENE. I PROMISE TO BE MORE CREATIVE IN FUTURE!_

ONE

**Thursday**

Brennan lies on a cold, hard surface. Images flash as she jerks awake: blood, a shroud, pulsating flesh, snakes, and more blood. Her eyes open suddenly and she turns over on her side. A cursory glance around tells her that she's in a bathroom; there's a sink and a tub, and the surface beneath her is a white tiled floor. Gradually she realizes that she's sticky, parts of her are warm and wet, other parts feel crusted over, almost in a shell.

The pool of blood in the floor is disconcerting indeed. Since she spends so much time around human remains, putting pieces of puzzles together, it takes her a moment to consider that the blood might be her own. More images flash: blood dripping from the walls, the hands of a man, covered in the red sticky substance. Whose hands?

She can feel that there's a gash on her head and surmises that's where the blood has come from, as she feels, at the moment, no other serious injury. The head bleeds profusely, which maks head injuries look worse than they are. Satisfied that standing up will not cause her to pass out, she places her hand on a nearby chest and attempts to push herself up. She fails. Breath-stealing pain shoots through her hand, wrist and arm. With her left hand, she gently feels the injury to her right. This cursory examination tells her that her right distal radius has been fractured. An x-ray would tell her how, possibly why.

She uses her right elbow to do what the wrist could not. She gets to her feet and looks into the mirror. A glance tells her what she already knows: gash on her head, lots of blood. But it also reaveals a glimpse of herself as she had never intended to look. She looks helpless, covered in blood, victimized. A flush of surprise and _how did this happen_ comes over her, but as yet, she is too shocked to feel anger. And then she notices her left ear. The earring is gone – her mother's earring. A vague memory of a knife, and of fleeing down stairs comes to her. No answers, only flashes.

The phone begins to ring. In a very un-Brennan-like way, she decides she must answer it, as it might tell her what the hell happened, and what to do next. As she makes her way slowly out of the bathroom and across a spacious living room, she is relieved to realize that she recognizes it – it is the suite she checked into last Friday. She's in New Orleans, on vacation, helping identify Katrina victims. It's something at least...

She sits carefully down in the sofa, and picks up the phone.

Without her having to say hello, a woman's voice says, "Dr. Brennan, your airport shuttle is here."

"What?" she asks. It comes to her – she's not ready to leave this city yet. She tells the woman, "No, um, my flight isn't until Thursday."

"Today _is _Thursday, Dr. Brennan," she is told, with a slight air of impatience.

Brennan is frozen for a few seconds. She thinks back: Graham knocked a tray of instruments to the floor. That was Tuesday. Blank. Then she woke up here.

She asks herself, as her mind clouds up even more, "What happened to Wednesday?"


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

**Three days ago: Monday**

"Right this way, gentlemen," the hostess said. She led them through La Cassette, a not-so-trendy, but well-liked restaurant in New Orleans' Garden District. Graham Legere had lost a bet, and Sam Potter had chosen this restaurant as his pay-up. Dr. Legere made a lot more money than he did, and Sam had wanted to choose an expensive place with white tablecloths. But alas, he could not argue with the tried and true Gator Gumbo at La Cassette – it's what he craved.

As the shapely girl showed them their seats, Sam spotted a familiar face. He saw Richard Benoit a split second before Benoit saw him and waved him over.

"Excuse us, please," Sam said to the hostess. He motioned for Graham to come with him, and the two of them crossed the room to greet Benoit and his daugther, Eva.

The two old friends shook hands heartily, and Sam kissed Eva on the cheek.

"Richard, so good to see you," Sam said with a sincere smile. He gestured to his dinner companion. "This is Dr. Graham Legere. He and I know each other from the makeshift church morgue. Graham, this is Richard Benoit and his daughter Eva."

"A pleasure, sir, miss," Legere said, pretending to tip a gentlemanly hat which was not actually on his head.

"It's nice to see you, Sam," Benoit said with a smile filled with cameraderie. "Would you like to join us?"

Potter and Legere looked at each other and shrugged happily, and then took the two seats next to the Benoits.

"So you know each other from a church morgue?" Benoit asked, chewing on a slice of French bread.

"Yes," Sam said. "I'm doing the usual orderly business, but Graham here is helping with ID's."

"Hurricane victims," Eva said sadly.

"_Helping_ being the operative word," Graham insisted. "Dr. Brennan, she's the one at the helm."

"Oh?" asked Benoit. He noticed a secret smirk that came to Graham's face when he said her name. Benoit smiled largely. "And who is this Brennan?"

"Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institute in D.C.," Graham told him. "She is a forensic anthropologist who specializes in identifying human remains in an advanced state of decomposition."

"She's a bone expert," Sam clarified. "She can tell us things about a person by looking at their bones that no one would have known even when the person was up and walking around."

Benoit was impressed. "Like what?"

"Well, like yesterday, she identified, just on sight, that the victim was mixed-race, around 60 years old, had died five years ago, played golf and had had a pacemaker inserted within two weeks of death. From there we could narrow it down. He was found in Metairie, already embalmed – unearthed from his grave by the flood. How many mulattoes are there in Metairie who are wealthy enough to play frequent golf, and had pacemakers inserted, and then died, five years ago?"

"A handful, I would think," Eva offered, skeptically.

"Exactly," Graham told her. "A handful. Do you know how small a handful is in comparison with the Katrina victims' numbers? We made a couple of phone calls, and she positively ID'd him within an hour and released the remains to his family later that day."

"Interesting. How does she do this?" asked Benoit.

"I don't know," Graham said, reaching into the bread basket. "I'm just an M.E., I can feel when things are broken, set an injury, do DNA and blood... but Temperance? She can just look at them and... know. Sometimes I wonder if there isn't something supernatural at work, like the dead guy is talking to her or something. I know it sounds crazy, but she's... she's like _the bone whisperer_."

Sam smiled. He patted Graham on the back, and reassured him, "You are the only non-practitioner of voodoo here at this table, Dr. Legere. Your theory doesn't sound so crazy to us, my friend!"

Graham rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, I forgot who I was talking to."

* * *

Benoit was not a man who liked to hurry – he believed in taking his time and doing things right. This is why he was still sitting at La Cassette thirty minutes after Graham Legere, Sam Potter and even his precious Eva had left. He was sipping a brandy and having a cigar, facing the outside window and watching the people pass by. In this part of the city, it was mostly locals, mostly younger. Not too many tourists these days in New Orleans, and the ones who came kept to the Vieux Carré and usually only around Mardi Gras.

Sam Potter was a nice man, and intelligent. He was a faithful voodoo artist, and thoroughly believed in its power to heal. Potter utterly renounced the dark side of this magic, though he believed in balance.

Legere had seemed all right – clearly he was not "one of them," being a loud-mouthed (if educated and sincere) white man, probably a Christian. However, he had been polite, he had told an entertaining story of two, and he had backed off immediately, with apologies, when Eva told him she had a boyfriend. Probably a gentleman, and nothing really wrong with him. Other than a schoolboy worship of Dr. Brennan, that is. Benoit found this a bit distasteful, weak, though he'd managed to hide this feeling from Legere as they conversed.

He took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed.

"Mr. Mechant," Benoit said, his voice low and inaudible to those around. "I believe I have found someone. A doctor from the Jeffersonian identifying bodies of hurricane victims... yes sir, I believe _she _is who we have been looking for."


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

**Tuesday morning**

Café du Monde was a surprisingly good place to have private meetings. The place was large, open air, crawling with tourists and pigeons. Everyone there was so concerned with the novelty of it, the the "experience" of having coffee and beignets in the historic landmark, no one noticed when locals dropped by. In fact, locals hardly ever dropped by...

Nevertheless, this morning, Benoit sat sipping his coffee, watching the tourists and the pigeons, occasionally feeding the latter.

When Henri Mechant slipped into the seat across from him, Benoit gave a little start. Mechant was tall, dark like the Congolese that he was, and unsmiling. His shaved head shone like the head of a royal sceptre, and his black eyes pierced the daylight like a flashlight pierces the dark.

"Benoit," he said, sotto voce. His voice boomed like a bass even when he kept it quiet.

"Mechant," Benoit responded, trying not to show his surprise.

"Come now," Mechant encouraged sternly. "I haven't got all day. Why do you think this Brennan is our lady?"

This was Mechant's way – right to the point, cut through the bullshit. Benoit nodded, and began to make his case.

"I did some reading last night," Benoit said, brandishing a stack of internet printouts. "There is quite a profile on the Jeffersonian's web page. She has traveled all over the world helping to identify bodies of genocide victims. And she is here because of Katrina. She is a registered marksman with the NRA. She is a black belt in three different martial arts. "

"But how is a scientist a good candidate for our needs?" Mechant asked, opening his huge hands. He caught the eye of a waitress and raised one finger subtly for a coffee.

"Don't you see?" Benoit asked, leaning across the table slightly. "She has a first-rate mind. Not only is she highly intelligent, but the fact that she's a marksman shows that she is highly refined and concentrated. And to achieve a black belt in martial arts takes the kind of meditative connection that we seek."

"Martial artists are contemplative mystics," Mechant argued. "Eastern philosophy believes in retreating into the self to find the divine spirit. We are ecstatic mystics – we expand outward to find the divine spirit."

"But a mind that has already expanded so far inward is already duly stretched to facilitate the outward expansion, Henri," Benoit countered.

"Fair enough, continue."

"She has power over men," Benoit said, eyes open, blazing. He shuffled the papers in front of him and read. "According to the Jeffersonian's website, she has full dominion over two other scientists, a Ph.D. candidate called Zach Addy, and a entymologist-minerologist-microbiologist, Jack Hodgins. He has three doctorates and a mind arguably as versatile as that of Dr. Brennan, but yet he answers to her unquestioningly. Why?"

"Getting warmer. What else?"

"I saw her picture. She has an undeniable sexuality. Granted, it is tempered by her intellectual prowess, but we are not concerned with such things, are we, Mechant?"

"Indeed not."

"And the most important piece of the puzzle," Benoit said, rasping at almost a whisper now. He wanted to be dramatic. "This, Mr. Mechant is the _pièce de résistance_. She can make the dead speak."

"Pardon?"

Benoit didn't bother repeating himself. Mechant had heard him just fine. He simply nodded emphatically, looked at the tall man meaningfully.

"Think about it," Benoit said, now fully leaning across the table. "She identifies bodies when they are decomposed, burned, torn apart beyond recognition. And yet, she has the power to find out who they are without DNA, without dental records, without a face or a body. Sometimes, after hundreds of years."

Mechant gave a dismissive gesture. "_Pas grand chose_," he said. "That's not impressive. Modern science." He said these words with contempt.

"But she is only one of three people on the planet who can do what she can do," Benoit insisted. "No one else on this continent who operates under the guise of _modern science_ has her ability. I don't think it's science that allows her to see these things – I think she has _un cadeau_. It's a gift, Mechant."

Mechant looked at Benoit skeptically, his obsidian eyes boring holes in the smaller man's sweaty forehead. For a long time, they said nothing. Finally, Mechant conceded. "All right. You have my blessing to bring her into the fold."

Benoit smiled. "You will not regret it. Dr. Temperance Brennan shall be the Grand High Priestess of Secte Rouge."


	4. Chapter 4

**_OKAY, SO THIS ISN'T THE MOST EXCITING CHAPTER, THAT IS UNTIL THE END (CLIFFHANGER!). THE INTENT HERE IS TO CAPTURE BRENNAN'S VOICE (AND BOOTH'S TOO, I SUPPOSE) IN ANTICIPATION OF THINGS TO COME. I HOPE THAT HER BRENNAN-NESS IS COMING THROUGH LOUD AND CLEAR!_**

FOUR

**Tuesday evening, 8:50 p.m.**

Sam Potter heartily recommended the Andouille Jambalaya at Pierre's Kitchen.

"Indeed, ma'am," the waiter said. "It's our house specialty."

"I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian," Brennan answered. "I'm in the market for something representative of local flavors, but that does not contain any animal flesh or byproducts. What can you recommend?"

Potter and the waiter looked at each other, and both shrugged.

"Er, why don't you just ask Peter if he can whip up his Cajun tomato bisque, perhaps with some white rice and chives?" Sam said.

"Sir, we took that off the menu quite a while back," the waiter protested.

"Tell him Sam Potter requests it," the gentle orderly said. "He will do it as a favor to me."

The young waiter nodded and disappeared behind a curtain.

"Now then, Dr. Brennan," Sam Potter asked. "What is it you seek?"

"This was found in the mouth of our John Doe," she answered. "Dr. Legere suggested I bring it to you; he said that it looked like some kind of voodoo talisman, and that you might be able to help." She extracted a clear freezer bag from her purse and handed it to Sam.

"Ohh, what have we here?" Sam muttered as he examined it.

"It's a charcoal-grey mesh drawstring bag containing bits of organic materials," she answered his question, literally. "Such as chicken feet, presumably some nutmeg, some anis seed, and a kind of bark that I couldn't identify on sight."

"Yes, thank you, Dr. Brennan," Sam said gently, but showing his irritation. "I can see what it is. It's the implication, the rarity that is striking to me."

"Meaning?"

"It's a gris-gris bag," he told her, still examining. "It is a mark of Secte Rouge, the darker half of our voodoo family."

"What are its presumed properties?" Brennan asked, always the skeptic.

"I cannot know that until I examine it further. May I keep it for a day or two?" he asked. "If I can identify that 'bark' as you called it, I can tell you what it was made for."

"Oh, I've already had a sample sent to the Jeffersonian," she said. "Dr. Hodgins should have an answer for me in a few hours."

"This Hodgins, he knows voodoo?"

"I can't say that he does, not with any certainty, but I wouldn't rule it out," she answered him quite seriously. She was thinking about all the Illuminati nonsense he was always spouting. Still, she respected his prowess as a scientist. "What I _can _say with certainty is that he is one of the country's foremost experts on particulates including organic particulates. He'll know soon."

Sam wasn't impressed. Science wasn't his bag – besides, _science_ is just another name for what he and his brethren called _mojo_, only those who are wise know that it is the Great Divine, not a microscope or a computer, that reveals the secrets of the Earth. If Hodgins found the answer, it would be because the Divine wished it so, and Sam silently wished him goodwill to that end.

He attempted to change the subject to movies, television, current events, the weather... but he found Temperance Brennan exceedingly difficult to talk to. She was overly literal and seemed incapable of making niceities. Eventually, he found that discussing the New Orleans Saints wasn't a bad topic, as Dr. Brennan confessed herself fascinated by the kinesthesiology involved in the game of football, and was able to comment on the mechanics of it from a completely different point of view. Still, it was as though the two of them came from different planets, and by the time their food arrived, they had nothing left to say to one another. No matter – he had no problem eating his Jambalaya in silence. Good food should be enjoyed without distraction anyhow.

* * *

**9:55 p.m.**

The two dinner companions stepped out onto the street. They could hear accordion music playing all around, an attempt to pretend that tourism hadn't taken a severe nosedive in the past year. There was a brass band playing in nearby Jackson Square. Brennan recognized the song as _Old Man River_, as her mother used to play an old Broadway Greats record when she was a child.

Brennan shook Sam Potter's hand as they left Pierre's Kitchen. She thanked him in advance for the insight he was offering to provide, but just below the surface, wondered if the man could be trusted to impart the information as needed. Anyone who could and would profess publicly a fervent belief in voodoo, in her opinion as an anthropologist, was not someone who fully appreciated the workings of modern science, and modern law-enforcement. Sam Potter was a good orderly and a nice man, and she respected his faith, but in her travels, she had found that those who closely adhere to ecstatic mysticism are not inclined to be swayed by western authoritative mores.

She made her way through the _Vieux Carré_, across Jackson Square, heading to a local bar near the French Market. She had agreed to meet Graham Legere there for drinks at 10:30. She had plenty of time to get there, so once she was out of immediate brass-band range, she decided to give Booth a call.

"Booth," he said simply, as always.

She was sort of surprised at how glad she was to hear his voice. Had she actually missed him? No... she knew that absence from her partner was much-needed and healthy. It didn't make any sense to pine needlessly for a human being she sees frequently, and with whom she would, in a few days, be back in a working environment. No, she didn't miss him, she decided.

"It's me," she said.

"Hey, Bones," he chirped. "How's the Big Easy?"

"The what?"

"The Big Easy," he said, slowing down. "You know, New Orleans."

"Oh. Fine. Why did you call it the Big Easy?"

"It's not just me, people call it that," Booth explained. "It's like a nickname."

"How did it earn that nickname?"

"I don't know, Bones."

"There must be a reason, probably dating back to the foundation of the city," she speculated. Actually... she never speculated.

"Yeah, probably," he said absently. "So how's your vacation been?"

"Very relaxing, thank you," she told him. "I wanted to run something by you. I was identifying remains at a volunteer outpost for Katrina victims here in the city..."

"You were doing _what_?"

"...and I came across a John Doe who had something lodged in his mouth..."

"Aren't you supposed to be _on vacation,_ Bones?"

"...and on the recommendation of a medical examiner, I ran it by a local voodoo practitioner..."

"A local _what?_"

She stopped walking. "Booth, could you focus, please?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."

"Sam Potter told me that it's called a gris-gris bag, and that it is said to hold some kind of untold power, and that it's a calling card for Secte Rouge, the dark side of voodoo."

There was an incredulous pause. Brennan didn't like to guess at things, and she didn't put much stock in psychology, but she suspected that Booth was standing with his hand on his hip, his eyes narrowed and his mouth open, wondering what to say next.

Indeed many questions were flying through the brain of Agent Booth. Part of his mind was still hung up on the fact that Bones was _identifying human remains... while on vacation_. Another part of his mind was trying to wrap around what the hell his partner was thinking listening to these people. He had thought she was a genius.

"Booth?" she asked, after the pause had taken on a life of its own.

"Wha... why are you telling me this, Bones?"

"Because," she said, starting to get a little impatient. "It might mean there's been a murder."

"But aren't you ID-ing hurricane and flood victims?"

"Some of them, yes," she answered, reaching the corner across from the Mississippi River walk. "But some of them are bodies that were disgorged from cemeteries during the soil upheaval caused by the flooding. Some of them have been dead and buried for years, only to surface again without a name tag. And if there has been a murder, isn't that what we do?"

"Yeah, I suppose, Bones," he said. She knew he was now running his hand over his face because he felt that she was being tiresome. "Listen, will you do me a favor? Will you actually _take a vacation_ before you come back to D.C.?"

"That's what I'm doing, Booth, I'm having a vacation," she protested.

"No, you're working. Remind me sometime to explain the difference between _work_ and _rest_."

"I enjoy my work, I find it relaxing. And I'm needed here." She began walking past Café du Monde, approaching the French Market. The tourist concentration was higher here than anywhere else she had seen thus far in New Orleans.

He sighed. "Fine. Just don't come back all twisted in knots like you were before you left. Remember, your vacation doesn't just benefit you."

"Oh, ha ha," she said, attempting to use sarcasm to show that she did not find Booth's jibe funny in the least.

Suddenly, she felt a great pressure on her arm. Instinctively, she jolted backward, as the attacker had come from the throng of tourists in front of her. She was not able to jerk out of his grasp, and then she found herself taken from the other side as well.

"Hey! What are you..." she cried out.

"Bones?" she heard Booth ask. "What's going on?"

Two men had her. Both were middle-aged mulatto men, both smelled of incense and cedar.

"Let go of..." she said, as the two men took her into a deserted doorjamb, and shoved something soft into her mouth.

"Bones! Bones! What the hell is happening?" Booth was now screaming.

Just before Dr. Brennan's phone dropped his call, and just before his heart leapt into his throat with dread, he heard a raspy, male voice say, _"Fais do-do, ma 'tite."_

He did not understand the phrase. He did not need to. Irrationally, he told no one of what he had heard, and simply listened to his heart. He was on the next flight from D.C. to New Orleans.


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE

**Tuesday-Wednesday, near midnight**

The beautiful lady opened her big blue eyes. She was staring at the stars. And then they began to swirl, along with fantastic, beautiful, splendid white curls in her peripheral vision. They seemed alive to her, to be leaving behind trails of light, tendrils in the air just for her.

And the drums. She was surrounded by beating. A thrumming that matched, it seemed, the rhythm of her very life. It was the rhythm of blood pumping through her veins, of the wind now caressing her bare legs. It was the rhythm of her walk, of her favorite song. It was the rhythm of chewing food, of wine pulsing its way down her gullet, of making love, of hearing the dead speak.

She smiled dreamily at the thought. The dead speak to her. Their bones bring messages, messages which the flesh only obscures. The bones bring faces and reality and truth. The dead speak...

And then she closed her eyes again. It hurt. Her senses flooded. Bright lights. Silver and chrome. A man with a beard speaking of chemicals. A blue garment. Searching for a material truth. Wires. None of these things moved in rhythm. She pushed them away. She saw only the bones.

A shiny black vehicle. Another man, dressed in a suit... a taller, stronger one with no beard. He was a digger. He was an inquirer into people's lives, people's deaths. He could make the dead speak as well, but only through their loved ones, their papers, their posessions. He could not listen to the bones as she could. This man... he understood the rhythm. He made her body thrum, he made her feel alive... but eventually she pushed him out too. Logic and disasters, the world out-of-balance. He was there, and she pushed it all away.

And all that was left was the thrumming. Voices. _Bienvenue_.

What were those things? Shiny things that interrupted the rhythm of life? Who were these men?

"Put it all aside, _ma douce_," a voice said. Someone was touching her hand. Now he was enveloping her hand and pulling at it.

She allowed him to pull her to a sitting position. She was now sitting on some kind of wooden platform. To her rough hands, it felt like a large tree stump. He stood near her, still holding her hand.

"How do you feel, my lady?"

"I feel..." she said, closing her eyes. _Nauseated, disoriented as though I'm involved in temporal displacement... I should be examined by a physician. _"...circular."

"Circular," the man repeated.

"My insides are moving in circles," she moaned, staring once again at the stars. "The sky envelops me, and I know not where I am..." she paused, her mouth open, as though she were truly communing with the heavens. And then she turned to her left and vomited in the dirt. Immediately, women dressed in white began digging a small trench to cover it, and within a few seconds, no trace of her sickness remained.

"My lady, you are in need of rest," the man said.

"I have just awakened," she told him. "I am in need of exploration." Her eyes opened wider, and she swung her legs over the side of the large tree stump, and stood. As she got to her feet, her senses flooded again. The tall man, the black vehicle... _is there somewhere I'm supposed to be?_

"But the effects of the transformation are still fresh," he said, taking her arm to steady her. "Surely you will agree that you are in need at least of assistance."

"You may assist me," she answered. "But I must explore."

"My lady..." he began to protest again.

"Why do you call me that? My name is Temperance."

_Oh, she remembers her name_, thought Benoit. _Something of her former life is coming through._

"This I know," he told her. "And my name is Benoit. However, you are now my High Priestess, and I am now your servant. I do not have the right to call you by your given name."

She seemed to contemplate. Her lower jaw set sideways a bit, in a gesture that made Benoit wonder if she did not trust him.

"Fine," she said finally. She turned to the women standing nearby. "And who are they?" she asked.

"These are the Brides of Secte Rouge," Benoit answered. "They are worshippers of the earth, of the dead. They are also your servants. They have, just now, performed the ceremony that brought My Lady's divine consciousness to us."

The women all bowed.

"Come," Benoit said to her. "If you are to explore, then you must meet Mechant."

Slowly, he led her across an open space surrounded by trees. Nearby, there was a hut, and it looked as though a fire burned inside. Benoit held back the curtain as the lady uncertainly stepped across the threshold. There, near the fire, sat the tall Congolese.

"Ah, my lady," Mechant said warmly, standing from the fire. "You are awakened."

"He calls me that too," she said, alarmed, looking at Benoit.

"Yes, Mr. Mechant," Benoit said, looking at Mechant meaningfully. "She is disturbed that we call her thus because she can remember her given name."

Mechant glared at him. Benoit nodded subtly as the lady searched the hut with her eyes.

"And what _is_ your given name, my lady?" asked Mechant.

"My name is Temperance," she answered simply, looking him in the eye.

Again, the Congolese glanced angrily at Benoit. _This _cochon_ told me I would not regret bringing the lady into the fold._

"And where have you lived, before you came to be here with us?"

She closed her eyes. Again, the images hurt. "Silver and chrome," she said. "A tall man... he rescues."

"A tall man rescues?" asked Mechant, stepping closer to the lady. "What is the tall man's name?"

She concentrated harder. Suddenly she opened them. "I do not know. I do not know names – only my own, and only those of the dead. Of other things, I know only what is in rhythm and what is not."

Benoit relaxed as she said this, and Mechant smiled a bit. "_Très bien_ my lady," Mechant said. "Please enjoy the fire while I confer with Benoit."

He grabbed Benoit by the collar and dragged him outside the hut.

With an emphatic, loud whisper, he hissed, "She is not supposed to remember _anything_, Benoit! _T'as foutu quoi?_ What the hell did you do?"

"I told you," Benoit shot back. "She has a superior mind. Someone like her, the knowledge cannot be erased so easily."

Mechant thought about it. Then he asked, "Who is this tall man? Is he her husband?"

"I don't think she is married," Benoit said.

"Then who the hell is he? And what does she mean _he rescues_?"

"I don't know!" Benoit insisted.

"Well, find out," Mechant commanded. "We will get the lady's mind more, shall we say, attuned to our methods."

"Be careful, Mechant," Benoit warned. "What if you wipe her memories and she can no longer receive messages from the dead? Remember that she is a world-famous forensic anthropologist who works with bones, not just our Priestess. You can't just go erasing her Ph.D. and expect her to perform."

"_T'inquiète pas._ You let me worry about that. You just make certain that this tall man who is not her husband does not come _rescuing_."


	6. Chapter 6

SIX

**Wednesday, 1:07 a.m.**

With a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Agent Booth stepped off the red-eye in New Orleans before anyone else on the flight. He had been the only fully-awake passenger on the flight from D.C., wired as he was from the late-night call from Bones which ended with her yelling and struggling, and strange, sinister voices lulling her into submission.

He had not stopped moving since hanging up the phone. He had grabbed his emergency duffel from a cabinet in his office and headed for the airport without so much as stopping to tie his shoe. He even took the stairs to cover the five floors between his office and the lobby. On the plane, he fidgeted, banged on the tray table, tried to make lists, drank coffee (which wasn't helping), went to the bathroom three times... he just couldn't calm himself. Now, he was at full stride across the New Orleans airport, his mind only on _her_. How the hell was he going to find her, especially without having cleared this trip with his boss? He was going to be in a whole heap of trouble when he got back to D.C., and somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this. The but the blue-eyed lady at the forefront of his mind took precedence.

However, almost as soon as it began, he became aware of being followed. An airport security guard was watching him from a safe distance, and was talking into his radio. Booth turned to the man, who was taken totally by surprise, and flashed his FBI credentials. The guard immediately backed off, with apologies, and wandered away. But the incident made Booth realize that he must have been acting shifty and weird. He forced himself to stop for a minute and gather his thoughts.

He saw an espresso kiosque with a few tables and chairs, was delighted to see something open at this hour, and decided to try to unwind a bit there. He set his bag down in a chair. He ordered another cup of black coffee, this time, decaf, and sat down.

He mentally chastized himself. He was so high-strung, airport security thought he was a terrorist. He knew he couldn't think straight this way, and he knew he needed his full faculties in order to attack this problem methodically. He was absolutely used to tracking down people who'd gone missing, or just plain didn't want to be found, and he always had at least some idea where to begin. This time, his mind was clouded, and he had nothing. This time, he _was _the confused and worried loved one that he normally tried so hard to help. He _had _to get ahold of himself. He just needed to pretend that Bones was a suspect he was trying to apprehend, and not his best friend, and he'd be able to figure it out just fine.

He took a deep breath. _Rule number one: start in the most obvious place._ Without much hope of any result, he called her cell phone. It rang seven times, and then her voice mail came on. He decided to leave her a message – perhaps there was a chance that this was all a major misunderstanding and she'd check her voice mail, call him a bit later and they'd go for lunch and have a good laugh.

"Bones, it's me. I'm in New Orleans, looking for you. Your last phone call... well... it gave me kind of a scare, so I decided..." he paused, realizing how insane this sounded. He was speaking with a calmness he did not feel, and trying to explain a situation that made him decidedly uncalm. Finally he said to Brennan's voice mail "...look, if you're okay, just give me a call, all right? And especially if you're not okay. Okay. Bye."

He made himself stay seated while he finished his decaf. He tried to think, for the moment, of mundane things like where he was going to stay, what kind of car he needed to rent, and how he would get access to the internet. He occupied himself by calling a tourism office which, if he called back during their normal business hours, promised to make all of these arrangements for him for a flat fee.

But he needed a car right now. He finished his coffee and threw away his cup, and followed the sign toward the Hertz car rental counter. He chose a black SUV, like the one he drove at home. While he was waiting for a valet to bring him the vehicle, he asked the rental agent, "Do you by chance know of any outposts for identifying Katrina victims?"

"Oh, those makeshift morgues? They're all over the city," the man replied. He spoke slowly, with a deep southern accent. "Churches, malls, rec centers... why?"

"I'm looking for a friend of mine," Booth told him. "She's been working in one of those places, but she never said where, and..." He decided not to reveal anything more.

"The biggest ones are in the Garden District," the man said. "Start there, work your way out."

"What time do they open up?"

"They run twenty-four hours, as far as I know. The dead don't wait for morning."

"No, I guess not," Booth said, quietly. He saw the black SUV approaching. He turned to the man and held out his hand. "Hey, thanks for your help. I hope I'll be able to return the car tomorrow evening at the latest."

"Good luck finding your friend," the man said, shaking his hand.

* * *

Booth followed his map to the Garden District. He found what looked like a smallish convention center tucked back beneath a highway viaduct. Lights were on, cars were parked nearby, ambulances loomed darkly outside. Logic told him that this would be a good place to start.

As he went through two sets of double doors, he wondered what the inside must look and sound like when tragedy _wasn't_ the color and native language of the region. Concerts were likely held here, craft shows, trade expositions... things to get excited about. But as he looked to his right and left, all he could see were men and women in clean green scrubs, milling around gurneys and makeshift stretchers. Some were draped over with white cloths, some had decayed remains exposed, and others had fully-fleshed bodies, waiting for someone to claim them.

He approached the nearest scrub-wearer. She was a nice-looking woman, short blonde hair, maybe thirty years old.

"Hi," he said to her, rather in a non-committal way.

"Hello," she answered. Her eyes brightened as she registered his presence. "You're not exactly from these parts, are you?" She looked him up and down, noticing his brown leather city-boy jacket, _Cocky_ belt buckle and brownish-blue GQ jeans.

"No, as a matter of fact," he told her, flashing his badge. "I'm Special Agent Seely Booth. I'm looking for a forensic anthropologist named Dr. Temperance Brennan, who seems to have gone missing. Do you know her?"

"No, I'm sorry," her face changed to one of sadness. "Was she caught in the floods?"

"No no, nothing like that," he answered, shifting in his shoes. "She's down here identifying bodies, and we at the FBI have reason to believe that she's been kidnapped."

The woman's face changed once again. Surprise, this time, followed by consternation. "Oh God," she gasped. "Hold on, let me find Dr. Henthorne. I'm just a nurse here, but she's one of the lead physicians. If anyone would know anyone here, it would be her."

Booth followed the woman through another set of double doors that led into the main exhibition area. The entire arena-like space looked exactly like the entryway outside: doctors and nurses everywhere, bodies piled up, a solemn, midnight silence.

The woman picked up a walkie from a table near the door. "Dr. Henthorne? This is Cammie. Can you hear me?"

A moment later, a female voice crackled through the speaker. "Yes. What's up?"

"Can you please come to the main doors of the convention space? The FBI is here asking some questions that I don't have the answers to," Cammie replied, smiling nervously at Agent Booth.

"Be right there."

Less than sixty seconds passed, and Booth saw a heavy-set African-American woman who seemed to be making a beeline for them. He stepped toward her, and offered his hand for the shaking. "Dr. Henthorne?"

"Yes," she answered. "Are you with the FBI?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, flashing his badge again. "Special Agent Seely Booth. A forensic anthropologist by the name of Dr. Brennan has gone missing from the New Orleans area, and I was wondering if you could help me."

"A forensic anthropologist? Does that mean she was ID-ing victims?"

"Exactly," he answered, clasping his hands in front of him. "She works at the Jeffersonian in Washington D.C., and she was using some of her vacation time to volunteer at one of the outposts here."

"Did you say D.C.?"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, a friend of mine who's also working at an outpost said that there was some lady doctor from D.C. helping out at his facility, just for a week or two" she said. "He's an M.E. out of Baton Rouge. His name is Dr. James Embry."

"That's great, ma'am," Agent Booth said, getting excited about the first good news he'd had since arriving. "Can you tell me which outpost he works at?"

"He's at an old community theater, not too far from here. I can give you directions," she offered.

Booth pulled out his pen and pad, and handed them to her. She sketched out a crude map of the area, and quickly explained the streets and landmarks.

"Thank you, ladies," Booth said before leaving. "Thank you very, very much."

His gaze lingered in a way that made Dr. Henthorne ask, "Agent Booth, this isn't just a kidnapping case is it?"

"No, it's not," he said. "It's very personal."

* * *

The black SUV pulled up outside the Jardin de Chance Theater. The scene was much the same as at the convention center: lights on, cars everywhere, ambulances gone dark, awaiting their call. Booth glanced at his watch. 2:38 a.m. Thank goodness he'd been up late Monday night finishing up paperwork, or he'd be seriously hurting for some sleep soon.

He entered through a side door, and the scene here was familiar. Again, he approached the nearest live human being in scrubs. Again, he introduced himself, showed his credentials and asked after Dr. Brennan. This time, a spark of recognition shone in the eyes of the orderly.

"Yeah, she works here," the young man said. "She's been here a couple weeks – she's been like a Godsend."

"Any idea where she went last night?"

"No, but I'd suspect wherever it was, it was with Dr. Legere," he replied. "What's this about?"

"Dr. Brennan's gone missing, we have reason to suspect foul play," Booth told him. "Now what did you say this guy's name was?"

"Dr. Graham Legere," the young man answered. "He's the head M.E. here. He's got a thing for Dr. Brennan, and he was saying yesterday that he was going to ask her out."

"And you think she'd have said yes?"

"Dr. Legere is pretty charming," he told Booth, with an almost apologetic shrug. "He's got a way with the ladies. I wouldn't doubt it."

"Is Dr. Legere here now?"

"No, he doesn't come in until about 5:00," the orderly revealed. "And he always stays late. He's a good guy... really committed to the cause, you know?"

"And uh, what's your name please?"

"Me? Oh I'm Andy Beaucaire."

"Great," Agent Booth said, patting Beaucaire on the shoulder. "Thanks Andy. I'll be back at five."


	7. Chapter 7

SEVEN

**Wednesday, 2:15 a.m.**

She was sitting still, as asked. She stared at the dirt floor in the cramped area where now she waited. She did not know what she was waiting for, nor why she agreed to sit here. Something about this place felt right, but she was still finding that pushing things away was what kept her here. Did she long for something else? Did she remember _being_ someone else?

_Is there somewhere where I'm supposed to be? Shouldn't someone be looking for me?_

When she fixed her gaze on something, she could feel it more clearly, the rhythm of life and the earth. Her crystalline blue eyes began to follow a beetle moving lazily across the clay. Chrome and steel flashed again, and her worlds collided. The bearded man again was in her mind. He seemed to watch the beetle closely. And then a million beetles ate the skin from a corpse.

And she pushed. The chrome was gone, the beetle was here, all alone, just making his way across the space, this tent pitched upon hallowed ground. _Scarab_, she thought. It crawls its way across the Egyptian sky and when it disappears, night falls. Its presence surely must mean the end of something, and the dawn of something new...

And then the calm was shattered. A crash. The beetle was gone, crushed beneath a heavy load of burlap and bone. When she looked up, the small dark man, and the large darker man, were standing in the shadow of the tent flap staring at her.

"_Bienvenus_," she said to them, not understanding why.

"My lady," the smaller man called Benoit said to her. "It is time. These are the bones of Marcellus Ladouceur. His wife is here. Meet Roberta."

He held the flap open, and slowly, a frail old lady entered the tent, along with a young woman and young man.

_These are people of the earth. People of the flood, their lives thrown into turmoil by the unbalance of nature's wrath._

Temperance stared at the bones spilling out of the burlap bag. She stood and absently gestured to the tree stump where she had been sitting, and the old lady thanked her as she took a seat.

The large dark man, whose name she now knew to be Mechant, spoke. "My lady, Mrs. Ladouceur's husband was murdered."

"He was poisoned," the widow croaked. "By one of those no-good orderlies at the home. I knew that place was no good – I told my daughter it wan' no good, didn't I sweetie-pie?" She turned to the young lady she'd brought with her for validation.

"That's right, grandma," she answered, patting her grandmother on the hand.

Temperance was already kneeling down in the dirt and touching the bones, arranging them upon the tent floor.

"Mrs. Ladouceur would like my lady to tell her who killed her husband," Mechant said to the kneeling woman, pointedly.

"Let us begin the ritual," Benoit said.

The two men linked hands. Then Mechant took the hand of the young man who had come in with Mrs. Ladouceur, who took the widow's hand, who took her granddaughter's hand. The young woman reached out to Temperance, but Temperance did not see. She was lost in what the bones were already saying.

"My lady," Mechant said. "We must link hands in order to conjure the spirit of Mr. Ladouceur, so that he might speak to you."

Benoit knelt down and put his hands rather forcefully on the tops of her arms to try to get her to her feet. "Now, close your eyes, my lady," he told her "And link hands with me and with the nice young woman here."

"If I close my eyes, the secrets cannot be revealed," she told him, shaking free of his grip.

"All due respect," Mechant said, again, pointedly. "There are certain channels we must take to the spirit realm."

"No," Temperance insisted. "The bones tell me much even now."

Mechant and Benoit stole nervous glances at each other, and both of them dared to inspect the faces of their clients. The Ladouceur family looked confused, distraught.

The lady on the clay floor fingered the bones, she leaned close and squinted. She felt the rhythm now, this was right, this was honest. Nothing penetrated her perception at this time, nothing hard or shiny or light – only the darkness and the voices of the dead.

"He wasn't murdered," she said quite loudly. She continued to stare at the specimens.

"He was poisoned slowly over a period of time," insisted the granddaughter. "They did something to him, made him weak, made him crabby. By the time he died, he looked like a hunchback and walked like a snail."

"It was not a poison," insisted Temperance, holding tightly to a femur. Now, she did close her eyes. Now, the chrome world came back. "A sickness. A wasting. A kind of... emptiness."

Silence pervaded the space as she prepared to speak again.

The chrome was telling her nothing and the bones were telling her everything, and yet she needed to access something lost... what was it? For a split second, she didn't fight it. For less time than it takes to blink, she let it in, the bright, electric world of old.

"Osteoporosis," Temperance Brennan said into the air, and then she closed herself off again to the brightness and metal.

"Osteoporsis?" the young man asked. "Are you certain?"

Temperance opened her eyes and looked at him squarely. "Young man, I can hear its voice. The bone spoke to me as all bones do. I am never wrong." Her voice was even more vehement and expressionless than usual.

"No wrongdoing?" asked the granddaughter.

"The great sin here is that no one noticed the wasting disease," Temperance said, a slight bit of Dr. Brennan's voice coming through. "His suffering was great, and went unnoticed. That is what his bones tell me."

The widow seemed to be whimpering a bit. Temperance did not know why – it was not her right to know why. Crying was not in her rhythm – she rejected it.

The granddaughter rushed to comfort her. "Come on, grandma," she said. "Let's go home. Maybe we can call a lawyer in the morning."

Amid protests from Mechant and Benoit, the Ladouceur family left, carrying the burlap bag of bones with them.

As the Ladouceurs drove off, Mechant looked harshly at his colleague.

Benoit defended himself. "There was still wrongdoing, Mechant. It was not my fault they decided to call a lawyer instead of using voodoo."

"_Cochon_," Mechant spat with contempt. "No one seeks mystical vengeance for medical malpractice! Only murder! Malevolence! Evil! With her around, we'll be lucky to find anything sinister to work with!"

"Just let me..."

"No. You are finished, you have failed. She is mine now."

He tore his way across the field and back into the tent, where the bone lady still knelt on the floor. She was staring at the broken body of a beetle, wondering if her brand-new beginning was at an impasse.

"My lady," Mechant said, nearly spitting these words as hard as he had spat at Benoit earlier. "Your words with the Ladouceur family have displeased me."

She stood up and looked at him defiantly. "You are my servant. What displeases you does not concern me."

He took two steps forward, and Temperance found herself with her nose almost touching his collarbone. He attempted to stare her down. "I serve the earth, and you are merely a catalyst. Do not pretend that you are important."

She remained defiant. "The man was not murdered."

He didn't say anything, but his anger bubbled just beneath the surface. When words finally came forth, they were harsh, wispy and dry. "From now," he rasped. "We do this _my way._"

She closed her eyes and seemed to get lost in something. "I know not of your way. I know only the rhythm."

"You'll learn," he insisted, watching her swoon.

* * *

**2:56 a.m., Central Time**

"Zach Addy."

"Good morning," the voice said over the receiver. "Is this the Medico-Legal lab of the Jeffersonian Institute?"

"Yes, it is," Zach answered. There was a pause while he waited to be asked further questions.

Finally, the stranger obliged. "I'm calling to inquire about Dr. Temperance Brennan."

"I'm afraid she's out of the lab this week on vacation."

"Well, erm," the voice said. "I'm a journalist from the, er, Gazetteer Local, and I'm doing a story on a crime she's recently helped solve."

"Was it the high school chemistry teacher killed by one of his students?" asked Zach. "The one that Dr. Brennan and Dr. Hodgins solved by noticing that the hairline fracture near the cranial suture contained pieces of a Titanium alloy later to be discovered congruent with a metal music stand she had seen in the high school band room..."

"Yes, that's the one. Tell me about Dr. Brennan."

"Well, she's five-foot-nine inches tall, she has light brown hair, blue eyes..."

"No, I mean something that our readers might be interested to know about her."

Zach did not understand. "She has _very_ nice eyes."

"Perhaps something of her personal life."

"Dr. Brennan doesn't have a personal life."

"Young man, everyone has a persona life."

"Not Dr. Brennan."

"Well, isn't there a man in her life? I mean, a woman with _very _nice blue eyes... she's got to have someone. A suitor? An erstwhile companion?"

Zach thought. "Well, the only men in her life are me, Dr. Hodgins and Dr. Goodman here at the Jeffersonian, and Agent Booth."

_Voilà,_ thought Benoit. _Agent – now that sounds like a man who rescues._

"And who is Agent Booth?"

"Special Agent Seeley Booth. He is Dr. Brennan's partner. He's part of the FBI."

"Tell me about Agent Booth."

Zach took a breath and began again. "Agent Booth is six-foot-two inches tall. He has dark hair, dark eyes, very widely-set scapulae, proportionally narrow ilia, and an unusually pronounced supraorbital ridge. I've always found that kind of fascinating."

"Would you say that Agent Booth is the... _noble_ type?"

"Of course, sir, he's an FBI agent. He's doing noble stuff every day."

"Rescuing people and whatnot?"

"Sure. And he was a soldier before that."

"Thank you, Mr. Addy."

"You're welcome, Mr...." but the line had gone dead.

Zach resolved to tell Angela or Hodgins when they came in, whoever came in first. He looked at the clock. It was just afer 4. He wouldn't see anyone for at least a couple of hours, but he was pretty sure everything would be okay. He blissfully went back to his work reconstructing the shattered pelvis of a man determined to have been killed around 1860 as a result of being trampled by livestock.

In another time zone, Richard Benoit jotted down, _Special Agent SeeleyBooth – 6'2", dark hair, dark eyes, military background. D.C. based._


	8. Chapter 8

EIGHT

**Wednesday, 4:00 a.m.**

The lady with the clear blue eyes had been stripped of her own clothes, and her own clothes had been replaced with those befitting a gifted priestess who builds bridges between the living and the dead. She had not fought the process – she had welcomed it. The Congolese man had the rhythm of life in his veins, she could see that by looking through his large frame.

She looked at the gown adorning her body. This time when the hard world intruded, she did not see the flashes of glass and chrome. She saw dirt, but in a different place on Earth. She heard a foreign language, which she nevertheless understood. She pushed it away.

She saw a room with hard walls and hard floors, and many people inside, sitting on a sloped surface, listening to a man talk.

_Anthropology_. It was a word that came into her mind as she studied her white garment. It studies life, and yet does not live…

_Pagan traditions parallel with social mores in modern Christian society, its symbols have been copiously and conspicuously appropriated by…_ she pushed it away. She ran her fingers over the curved tops of her partially-exposed breasts. The clothing made her blood pound in her head and veins, she could feel the rhythm when she touched her own skin. She felt hot, and pure, one with the dead, even more so than when the lady Temperance had been Dr. Brennan.

_Dr. Brennan… is there someplace I'm supposed to be? Someplace I'm supposed to go? Where is the tall man?_

"My lady, we are ready for you," the Congolese's voice said from the doorway of the hut she seemed to be in. Before this moment, she had not noticed any surroundings in quite some time. All of her musings and observations were carried inside, much like her rapport with the bones.

She allowed him to take her hand and lead her out into the clearing where she had begun this journey. The sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, just barely, like a wink at the day, with a bit of gold kissing the toes of the trees. In the center of the circle now stood a stone pedastal. Surrounding it were serpents of all sizes, hissing and gnarling around the base of the stone. The Brides danced round ecstatically to the rhythm of drums, the rhythm, the rhythm… they danced closer and closer to the center.

"What is happening, Mr. Mechant?" asked Temperance.

"This is the Caché family, my lady," he answered, pointing to the right. A middle-aged woman sat on a fallen log, along with four children, ages eight to twenty. His low, growling voice reverberated within the caverns of her chest, resonating in harmony with the drums. "They require to know what ancient secrets the flood has unearthed."

He led her to the center. Meanwhile, the Brides each picked up a snake from the center. Each of them held a snake with both hands while dancing more and more erratically around the circle. They held the snakes to their bosoms, to their midriffs, between their legs. The rhythm grew faster, the chanting more erotic, the Brides more ecstatic. They rubbed the serpent bodies over their flesh sensually like lovers while crying out in a frenzy of mystical orgasm, before falling to the ground.

_Anthropology,_ Temperance thought again.

"Come forth, Mrs. Caché, and bring your children forth," Mechant called out to the woman on the right.

The woman and her kids began walking toward the center of the circle. Temperance reached the center before they did. She asked, "Why have you done this? Serpentine presence is not necessary for receiving word from the bones."

The mother and children looked askance at one another.

Mechant smiled indulgently, though beneath the smile was an uncomfortable malice. "My lady, the serpent, as you well know, is a symbol of crossing over. It sheds its skin and leaves behind the shell, in order to start anew, as do we all when death sees fit to take us. Such is the way." He turned to the family. "Apologies."

The eldest son came forward with a cardboard box. "We found this in the backyard. The flood washed it up out the ground."

"They're old old old," the mother said. "We want to know what it means. How can we use it?"

Temperance stepped forward and peered into the cardboard box, carrying a set of muddy bones.

"These remains are not ancient," she announced.

The mother pulled the box out of the lady's grip. "How could that be? Look at them!"

"They are not ancient," Temperance repeated, calmly removing the mandible from the box.

"Who is it?" asked a teenaged daughter.

"The jaw, while it is the instrument of speech in life, at this moment in death, is revealing nothing," said the bone reader. "Remove all of the bones from the box and spread them."

The Brides began to dance once again and the bones were removed one-by-one from the cardboard box by the children and laid out anatomically by Temperance.

She studied a fibula very closely. "This man has been among the dead for thirty rotations of the sun," she said. "Or circulating within that time frame."

_Why can't you just say, about thirty years, Bones?_ asked a voice inside her head.

"He was elderly," she continued. She put the fibula back in its rightful place. She picked up the sternum.

"That's the chest bone!" the son cried out. "This man was shot!"

Temperance's gaze switched harshly to the young man, and she looked at him dead, with the penetratinge eyes. She took a step toward him, and it startled him, so he took a step back. She tried again, and this time, the young man allowed her to get closer. She pressed her hand to his chest.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "That hurts."

She did not answer. She was inside her own head – she was barely aware that the young man was conscious. She pressed her fingers in, digging into his skin and feeling the bone underneath, amid protests of pain from the boy. She felt a hole.

"Then you have been shot as well."

"No, I ain't been shot!" he cried. "Mama, would you tell her?"

"What's happening?" asked the mother.

"Your son possesses a sternal foramen. As does the dead man," said Temperance. She took two steps toward the mother, and again, amid protestations, she performed the same test. "As do you. This man is a family member."

The four children and their mother gaped at the bones laid out on the ground.

Temperance knelt once more and examined the ribs one by one. She took time to find the voice of each bone, the rhythm of the life of the man who died, contained in each piece of his remains. They spoke to her over a period that felt like eternity to everyone except the lady Temperance.

"The bones say that your relative was murdered, possibly with a shovel, in the early 1970's," she told them. "He was between fifty-five and sixty-five years old. The dead man has no more to say."

"Wait, bone lady!" the mother cried out. "What you saying?"

"I have said everything I have to say." Temperance turned away from the Caché family, and walked back toward the hut where she had dressed, where she felt hot, where she felt the rhythm envelop her even more greatly than in the cool morning.

"Murdered?" she heard the mother shout. "How could he be murdered?"

_I don't know how he could be, _something within her said._ I just know how he was. The man… he will tell you why…_

Temperance disappeared, and Mechant said to the family, "Do you know who this is?"

"My great grandfather disappeared in 1974," the mother said. "And my father was a ditch digger. That mis'able sumbitch! He killed his own granddaddy!"

Mechant feigned digust. "I am never surprised, though always saddened, at the brutality of man against his elders."

"Mama, we have to get revenge," said one of the children.

"Indeed," said Mechant. "Mr. Benoit in town can sell you the proper herbs for a cyclic ritual, which will neutralize the ignoble tendencies within the males of your family."

Temperance heard the exchange, and in a moment, Mechant was in the hut with her. "You have acted well, my lady. You are doing things our way. _Très bien fait_ – I am pleased."

"You are my servant," she reminded him. "Your pleasure is none of my concern."

He smiled softly. "Nevertheless, I must express my gratitude."

"The bones give me truth, they speak no lies," she told him. "I only impart _their_ knowledge. There is no room for deception in the bones."

Mechant smiled again.


	9. Chapter 9

NINE

**5:01 a.m., Central Standard Time**

The tinny alarm on Agent Booth's cell phone sounded in the semi-dark, but the man himself was already awake. Or, more accurately, was _still_ awake. He had forced himself to calm down and retreat into a motel, rest for a bit, gather his bearings and will down the driving panic that occasionally welled up inside. It was a terrible motel – he had killed three roaches upon entering, but all he really needed was a place to store his duffel bag while he searched for his partner.

Andy Beaucaire, one of the orderlies at the church-cum-morgue, had told him that Dr. Legere usually turns up for work at around 5:00. Booth had decided to leave the motel around then, so as to give the man time to put his things into a locker and get his brain working. He couldn't judge the man's character or gauge his responses if Legere was running on empty.

And so, at 5:23, he pulled up outside the church, and hopped out of the black SUV. When he stalked into the open space, made all the more eerie by the rising light outside, he did not see Beaucaire. So he spoke to the first person he did see. It was a blond man in a white lab coat, about his height, but unremarkable, not particularly good-looking nor smart-looking.

"Hi," Booth said, flashing his credentials. "Special Agent Booth, I was here a few hours ago…"

"Oh, you're Booth," the blond man said, extending his hand. "I'm Graham Legere. Andy said you'd come round here looking for me in the wee hours. Said you're looking for Dr. Brennan?"

Booth shook his hand, and for a moment, marveled at the utter commonness of this man. By most accounts, Bones had liked this man well enough to accept a date with him, and for that matter, most women liked him.

Really? This guy?

"Er, yeah," Booth replied. "Is there somewhere we can talk in private?"

"Sure," Legere answered, leading him down a side wall toward a door standing open. He ushered Agent Booth in, and shut the door. "This is the crying room. Don't worry 'bout no one hearing us talking in here – it's sound proof."

"For mothers to bring their babies when they cry in church?"

"You got it."

"Heh," Booth smiled, looking around. "Nice. Clever."

"So, you think something's happened to her?" asked Legere.

Booth motioned for him to sit. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"Yesterday," Legere answered, sitting down in a folding chair at the lonely card table in the center of the little room. "Here at the church morgue. I'd asked her to have a drink with me."

"And she accepted?"

"Yes, sir," Legere told him proudly. "She certainly did. Though, not without some prodding."

"When was the date set for?" Agent Booth was now slowly pacing back and forth in front of Legere. The good doctor did not seem bothered.

"Last night at 10:30. She never showed."

"Hm. And you didn't think that was unusual?"

"Well, sure I did."

"Why didn't you call the police?"

Legere smirked. "Come on, Agent Booth. A woman like her? Guy like me? What do you think my first assumption was?"

"She changed her mind," Booth answered, a little too quickly, eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, and, well you know… she was supposed to go back to D.C. tomorrow, so I just reckoned she decided I wasn't worth the trouble."

"Mm. That's fair," Booth said. "So you _did_ go to the rendezvous point?"

"The place where we were going to have our date? Yeah."

"What time did you arrive there?"

"Oh, round 9:30."

"Really? An hour early?"

"I wanted to have dinner first. Figured I'd eat, have an Irish coffe to calm my nerves, then wait for her to show."

"You arrived at the bar at 9:30, and you were there until when?"

"'Til 11:15 or so, when I realized Temperance wasn't coming."

"Is there anyone who can corroborate that?"

"Sure. The bartender, Larry. I'll give you his number, you can call him right now."

"Anyone else?"

Legere seemed at a loss, and his eyebrows went up. "Well, maybe Larry can give you the names of some of the regulars who were there and might have seen me."

"And what did you do at 11:00, having been stood up?"

Legere seemed midly offended by the phrase _stood up_. "Well, I just swallowed my pride, like the big boy that I am, and went home. Checked my voice mail from home when I got there, just to see if Temperance had called, but no such luck, so I went to bed. Then I came here. I didn't know anything was really wrong until Andy said you'd come sniffing. What makes you think something bad's happened to her?"

Booth eyed the man. The detail about having checked his voice mail felt contrived to him, but every other thing about Graham Legere, much to his chagrin, seemed strictly on the up-and-up. He would still check out Larry, and Larry's regulars, of course, and he would still verify the voice mail retrieval. But Booth was an excellent judge of character, excellent at knowing when someone was lying to him. And as much as he hated to admit it, this guy was probably legit.

So he leaned against the wall and sighed. "I received a call last night from Dr. Brennan. During the call, I heard a struggle. I heard the voices of two men, and Dr. Brennan protesting loudly, and then the line went dead."

"Well, what did the two men say?" Legere asked, getting to his feet. His righteous indignation annoyed Agent Booth – he didn't know why.

"I don't know," Booth admitted angrily. "It was in some other language. Seemed French to me."

"Well, that's more than possible 'round these parts. Any leads yet?"

"Just you. You've been my only hope so far."

"Sorry, sir," Legere said. "I can't give you anything else. But I'm damn well gonna help you find her, now that I'm in this thing."

"Yes, you are," Agent Booth agreed, having made up his mind already that one way or another, this man was not going to leave his sight.

* * *

**Meanwhile, 6:03 a.m., Eastern Standard Time**

Dr. Jack Hodgins was pacing back and forth on the forensics platform of the Medico-Legal lab. Zach was watching intently, his mouth slightly open with confusion.

"Are you _sure_, Zach, are you _sure_ that he specifically asked about Dr. Brennan's personal life?" Hodgins asked with an intensity that made his head seem as though it might soon explode.

"Yes, Hodgins, as I've clarified for you several times now. I have an excellent memory. I know I'm not wrong about this."

"Damn it, Zach!"

"What's all the commotion?" a deep, booming voice asked from somewhere behind him. Dr. Goodman was coming up the short flight of stairs with Angela in tow. He swiped his card and they breached the platform. Very calmly, the large man clasped his hands in front of him and asked, "Dr. Hodgins, why are you yelling?"

In tight, clipped syllables, Hodgins attempted to explain himself. "I'm yelling because this _numbskull_ here gave information about Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth to a journalist over the phone!"

"So? We do that all the time, Hodgins, the press loves them. What's the big deal?" Angela asked.

Hodgins sputtered for a few moments, then, "Angela, haven't you heard of the SLAESAL group?"

"The what?" she asked, annoyed.

"The slay salt?" asked Zach.

"No! The SLAESAL group. It stands for Servants of the Lord Against Earth Sciences And Logic. It's a religious sect that believes all Earth sciences and attempt at discovering natural phenomena through logic are evil and fly in the face of God and His works. They've been arrested all over the country on suspicion of killing all kinds of doctors, scientists, even mathematicians. Their M.O., specifically, has been kidnapping loved ones, and forcing their target into some kind of open situation, and then... whammo! And Zach, you just gave them the ammo they need to target Dr. Brennan. Frickin' brilliant!"

Goodman, Zach and Angela stared at Hodgins for a few moments.

Finally, Goodman said, "Dr. Hodgins, as someone who studies cultural behaviors, I have looked into the SLAESAL group. I can tell you: they have never killed anyone. No crime similar to the ones they are purported to have committed have ever been confirmed. Their bark is much worse than their bite."

"And you think the so-called _authorities _would tell you if there were a real threat?"

"Oh, for crying out loud."

"Just trust me on this," Hodgins insisted. "Now, I suggest an all-out manhunt. We need to find this guy. Zach, could you ID his voice again, if you heard it?"

"Yes, I think so. He… he had some kind of accent!"

"Okay, that's job one. Angela, go through the databases of known religious zealot terrorists and find all those with accents. Get Zach to give you other details, like how old he sounded, and the tenor of the voice, see if you can narrow it down."

"Excuse me?" Angela asked, leaning on one hip. "You give me orders, since when?"

"Dr. Goodman, you can use your position to contact the authorities again, get into their secret files, pull some strings and whatnot. Be dishonest if you have to," Hodgins continued. "Zach and I will get out into the field…"

"Dr. Hodgins," Goodman said.

"But first, I'll call Booth's office and warn him, and then he can contact Dr. Brennan…"

"Dr. Hodgins," Goodman said, slightly louder this time.

"And once Zach and Angela have narrowed down the voice, then Booth and Zach and I can…"

"Dr. Hodgins!" Goodman shouted. "Don't you have some four-thousand year old extinct grasshopper to study?"

"Well, yes," Hodgins conceded calmly. "But the report isn't due until the end of the week."

"I suggest you get back on it."

"Or what?"

"Or I put you on suspension for insubordination."

"Shaking in my shoes, Doc."

"All right then. How about _permanent_ leave without pay?"

Hodgins opened his mouth to talk back, but he was interrupted.

"Ugh," Angela said. "Just shut up and get back to your bugs, Hodgins."

With that, Goodman and Angela left the platform and Zach remained, staring at Hodgins.

"I don't care what they say," Hodgins said to Zach quietly. "I'm calling the FBI."

He picked up a phone and dialed the number they always used, when they wanted to reach Agent Booth's department; only Brennan had his private numbers.

He had a two-minute conversation, and then hung up. He looked at Zach with panic in his eyes.

"What?" asked the younger scientist.

"Booth isn't in his office, he is unreachable by cell phone, and they won't say where he went. There is a definite air of secrecy here, Zach. I say the SLAESAL people got to him already, Zach. Thank God Dr. Brennan is in the Big Easy, or you'd have _her_ blood on your hands, too, my friend."


End file.
